


Nocturnal creatures are not so prudent

by thegreatpumpkin



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Biting, Feral boys doing feral things, Good Dad Heimdall, M/M, Romulus and Remus AU I guess, Somewhat against his will
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:28:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25845829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegreatpumpkin/pseuds/thegreatpumpkin
Summary: Hela, the Usurper Queen, has deposed her father and left her baby brothers (the legitimate sons of Odin) in the woods to die. Unfortunately for her, that's the beginning of the story, not the end.(A Romulus and Remus Thorki AU, with a happier planned ending)
Relationships: Loki/Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 29
Collections: Thorki Eggxchange 2020





	Nocturnal creatures are not so prudent

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bluebird_Rose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluebird_Rose/gifts).



> I tagged this "Underage" because it's unclear how old the boys are during their first sexual encounter and I didn't want anyone to get an unpleasant surprise if they read them as young. I envision it as happening sometime in their late teens (16-18); if it makes you more comfortable, feel free to decide that it happens when they are 18. That is entirely compatible with the rest of the timeline.

Some will tell you that, when the twins came into my care, they had no language. That is untrue. They had the language of the wolves—at least, as much as any Aesir child can speak it without four legs and a tail. But they had a language of their own too, a language just between themselves; not like any tongue of the Nine Realms, but not like those of beasts either. Perhaps they still do. I would hear snatches of it, like strange music, in the evenings after I had put them to bed for many years after the rest of the wild had gone out of them.

I had my suspicions about where they came from, for you know that I see much. But they couldn’t do anything until they grew into their own, no matter whose children they were to begin with. So I made it my charge to care for them, to train and prepare them, to protect the royal line by giving it defenders at least, if they did not turn out to be heirs.

Some tale-tellers say I was out hunting the mother-wolf when I found them. This is also untrue. For some years the howling of the wolves had been wrong, and while the soothsayers claimed it was a sign of the curse the Usurper Queen had brought upon us, I sought a more practical explanation. Problems don’t get solved, I think you’ll find, when one throws their hands up and says it must be the curse.

I am rarely disappointed, looking for answers. The howling sounded wrong for the same reason a bird mimicking speech sounds wrong: it was a sound made for wolf throats, being carried instead by Aesir ones.

I’d been tracking their movements for some time, but it is both difficult and dangerous to get close to wolves with young. The mother-wolf saw them as adolescent pups, or seemed to, though she must have noticed how much more slowly they grew than her other litters. I let her come to know my scent, without getting so near that she felt the need to chase me off; I gave her due respects, and she came to tolerate me.

The twins were easier, once their adoptive mother was won over. They have always been curious boys; a creature that looked as they did, but who did not howl or hunt or smell like their pack or any other was too much of a mystery to be ignored. And a creature that possessed honey-cakes and cheese, meat that had been cooked and spiced, and good brown bread in addition to mystery—that was positively irresistible.

I won’t say it was easy to civilize them. I’m not sure, all things considered, that I even succeeded in that. But they came to know me, and by their tenth year slept more often in the beds I had set aside for them than beneath the stars. By twelve they spoke Asgardian with comfortable fluency, and by fourteen they were more boy than wolf.

Well—perhaps not  _ more. _ Half-and-half, at worst.

~

“Mine! Mine, mine, mine, mine!” Loki was learning words slightly faster than his brother, but not using them to any better effect. They tussled in the dust, rolling and biting; the object of contention had been a piece of shortbread, but since it was clutched fiercely in Loki’s sticky fist as they fought, what it was now was anyone’s guess.

Heimdall ignored the goings-on. He had no desire to be bitten trying to intervene, and they weren’t interrupting him, so he’d leave them to work it out while he worked the whetstone along the edge of a cooking knife. He did have to growl at them once—a very effective trick he’d learned from the wolf-mother—when they rolled too close to him and the blade, but beyond that he left them to their own devices.

The fight ended when Loki bit Thor’s ear, and Thor gave the sharp yelp that meant he’d gone too far. Loki licked the bite in immediate contrition, making himself small and avoiding Thor’s eyes in apology. He scooted back a little, opening his hand to offer Thor some of the shortbread wreckage, and when Thor accepted it was all forgotten as easily as if it had never happened.

Heimdall kept sharpening, but the corners of his mouth turned up just slightly.

Of course, with their fight resolved, he became more interesting again. They watched him work, speaking to one another in their own strange language, which was fine. Less fine was the way they inched closer and closer, until they were nearly on top of him and his now very-sharp knife. Heimdall made a pushing motion with the hand holding the whetstone, looking them each directly in the eyes, one at a time. “Stay back when I am working with knives. They are,” he pricked his thumb carefully, holding it up so they could see the bead of blood welling, “sharp.”

“Steybick.” Thor repeated, scooting back several steps. Loki, however, was entranced, reaching towards the knife.

Heimdall growled again, and this time he leaned forward, holding Loki’s gaze again as he did it. Loki spooked just like a guilty pup, scrambling back to his brother, though he still whispered  _ “sharp” _ with something like reverence.

Heimdall would teach him to use them, he thought, soon. How to clean a hare for dinner, how to slice an apple for eating or an onion for cooking. But the boys needed more words first, and possibly better control of their limbs; in the meantime, he’d start locking up the knives.

Dusk was coming on. Heimdall stood up. “Anyone who would like to sleep inside the house must wash now.” It wasn’t clear yet how much the twins grasped of what he said, but he never bothered speaking as if they didn’t understand. They would, if they didn’t already, and they certainly understood routine. They understood what it meant when it was near dark and Heimdall said  _ wash _ . They understood if they didn’t, they would sleep outside, and that was enough.

Tonight they consulted in their strange personal language, and when they had come to some conclusion, Thor lifted his head and said, “No wash.” 

Heimdall nodded. “Then goodnight.” He went inside, beginning to close the door.

There was the sound of a soft scuffle, and then two voices hurriedly crying “Wash! Wash!” on the threshold. Heimdall opened the door again, raising a calm eyebrow. “Have you changed your minds? Do you want to wash and sleep inside?”

“Yes wash,” Loki confirmed, so he let them in. 

Heimdall wasn’t a sticky, dusty mess, but even more civilized children were never impressed by  _ do as I say, not as I do, _ so he washed his own face and hands far more thoroughly than he needed, and the boys imitated him with minimal fuss. Then day clothes were exchanged for bed clothes—not that anything he put on the boys right now was much more than a glorified nightshirt, but they had to be eased into the idea of clothing, and keeping them from getting mud all over their bedding was a success in its own right.

They liked to be tucked in, which was a little curious; it seemed as if they would dislike being confined, but no, they both wanted the blankets firmly tucked around them once they’d realized that was an option. It made even less sense given that they were likely to end up in the same bed before even a quarter of the night had passed, curled up together like the pups they still half-were. But it calmed and settled them, and Heimdall didn’t need to know the why to know it worked.

They would stay in the room until morning, that was another of the rules; they had a chamber-pot, because Heimdall was fairly sure it was too soon yet for them to grasp the nuances between “yes, you may go out to relieve yourself,” and “no, you may not go out to chase things that smelled interesting.” Someday they would return to civilization and have the benefit of indoor plumbing, but for the time being, learning to use a bucket was well enough.

Heimdall hadn’t intended to be a father; somehow he’d fallen into it in the most sideways manner possible. Then again, he hadn’t intended to be a fugitive either, but the Norns didn’t consult him on important decisions. He was beginning to be used to it.

In truth, it wasn’t bad at all. He finished tucking the blankets around them both, then withdrew to the doorway, taking the candle with him. “Goodnight, Loki. Goodnight, Thor.”

Thor mumbled something indistinct, already yawning; Loki repeated the “good night” back to him, pronouncing the consonants with careful precision.

Not bad at all, Heimdall thought with satisfaction, closing the door. Then he went to collect everything even vaguely knife-adjacent in the house, so he could lock them all in the chest beneath his bed before going to sleep.

~

Thor was, at times, much easier than Loki.

They were both smart and inclined towards trouble, but Loki was  _ clever, _ a dangerous thing. And, perhaps more importantly, he was far less afraid to court Heimdall’s disapproval than Thor.

Heimdall did his best to redirect those impulses; like anything, it was easier to prevent a problem than fix it after the fact. He taught them how to use knives, both as tools and as weapons, and from there expanded to other weaponry. Loki’s love affair with knives seemed likely to become a lifelong commitment, while Thor preferred blunt instruments where he could apply all his power and very little finesse. He taught them ways of hunting game that didn’t involve using one’s teeth, and wasn’t particularly surprised when Loki delved deep into the intricacies of traps, improving upon the ones he’d been taught and inventing new ones. There was plenty of work to be done out here, and that helped run off the physical energy the boys needed to expend; it was a little more work on Heimdall’s part to make sure Loki stayed mentally stimulated enough to keep mischief to a minimum, but he was mostly successful in that as well.

There was one thing that worried him, though. There had been seidr in their mother’s line. The late Queen Frigga had had it herself. And while Thor showed no sign of it, Heimdall had a growing suspicion that it had come to Loki. It needed to be trained, but Heimdall had no such skill; his own foresight was not true seidr, only a strong sort of intuition. Seidrmasters were thin on the ground in Asgard as it was; trying to find one out here, and without calling attention to himself or to who the boys might be, was likely an impossible task.

Especially because there was no mistaking, now, whose children they were. Anyone who had seen the royal family up close would recognize Queen Frigga in Thor’s coloring and features, and King Odin in his bearing. Loki looked more like their older sister Hela, the Usurper Queen, but his mannerisms as he grew more comfortable with conversation were all his mother’s. Heimdall half-wished their heritage was less obvious; the truth was, he wouldn’t mind not being sure, if it meant he could keep them out of danger for a little longer. 

At least they were relatively safe in this rural community, for the same reason Heimdall was: the concerns of royalty were as distant here as the concerns of stars are to the grass underfoot. This place was poor, its inhabitants subject to deprivation and hardship, the land too difficult to produce any surplus or anything that interested the crown. It could be called mad coincidence that this was where Heimdall came to lay low, and also where the wolves brought the king’s legitimate sons; but Heimdall had seen enough in his lifetime not to discount the evidence of destiny when it appeared. He’d even thought they had an understanding of sorts once, though that illusion had been shattered by the coup.

Well. Here they were again. He could only hope his plans and destiny’s aligned this time.

~

Heimdall had a knack for knowing people, even in the middle of nowhere; while he didn’t manage to find a seidrmaster, there was a wise-woman a few villages along who turned out to have some genuine skill. She was willing to trade her time for a fat hare per lesson, which worked out nicely; Loki’s own snares would pay his tuition.

She came to them, to limit how many people saw the boys’ faces. Her name was Sága, and she was rangy and shrewd and deadpan in the way that some old women got when they stopped caring for what society found appropriate.

“So these are the wolf-boys,” she said, measuring them up as they eyed her with curiosity in turn.

“Word spreads far,” Heimdall said gravely. 

“Many words, few of them true. I’ve heard several versions—their mother froze to death trying to keep her infants alive, and the wolves found them howling by her iced-over corpse. Or, she was a witch, conducting obscene rituals with the wildlife, and the boys transform at the full moon. Or, she was trying to escape with her babes to Vanaheim and got terribly lost, and the wolves tore her apart and stole her sons.” A smirk tugged the corner of her mouth. “I don’t suppose you’re the father by blood.”

Heimdall raised an eyebrow, face impassive, and didn't bother giving that an answer. “I found no remains, female or otherwise, so I doubt the mystery of their origins will ever be solved. But they still need teaching.”

The twins had decided she was no threat and came closer. “What is it you teach?” Loki asked, suspicious.

“Can you teach us to grow melons?” Thor said hopefully. It had been a so-far unsuccessful garden project their last two summers; Heimdall had brought one home from a market last year, and Thor had not stopped thinking of it since.

“The only things in my garden are for poultices and poisons,” she said dryly. “No, I’m meant to teach you common sense and control, but some folks call that magic.” She gestured to the grass. “Sit. We’ll talk.”

The boys glanced at one another, but curiosity won out over distrust or rebellion. They sat themselves shoulder to shoulder, and Sága eased herself down opposite them. Heimdall hovered nearby, but she gave him a long, unimpressed look, so he took himself off to replace some of the thatching on the roof.

Sága took an apple from her bag. With the tip of one finger she traced a line around it, from the stem to the bottom and back up to the stem, and the apple split apart as cleanly as if she’d used a paring knife. Loki’s eyes went wide and covetous; he leaned forward, squinting at her finger as if there would be some visible secret to it. Sága ignored him, handing each of the boys half of the apple.

They both sniffed it, out of habit; Thor took a bite, though Loki was more cautious, looking between the apple and its giver.

“Try it, and tell me what you taste,” she said.

Loki did, letting a single bite sit on his tongue, while Thor continued working his way through his piece. “Sweet,” Loki said haltingly, after a long moment, with the faintest implied question mark at the end of the word. “Not easy-sweet like melon, it has...it’s…” he cast about with slight frustration, “tongue-sharp.”

“Tart is the word for that.”

“Tart,” Loki repeated, relaxing a little. 

“Yellow,” Thor said, having now finished his half down to the core. Loki frowned at him.

“It’s red.”

“Yes.” Thor was unperturbed. “It tastes yellow. It used to be yellow.”

“When it was growing?” Loki demanded. “Green. It’s green before it’s red. Maybe yellow in the middle but not for long.”

“No, before that. It still tastes yellow.”

Loki scowled. “That doesn’t make sense. It can’t taste yellow.”

Sága huffed what might have been a laugh. “It’s a hybrid. Bred from trees that had yellow apples, but weren’t very resistant to insects. The red apples were more resistant but didn’t taste very good.”

“Yes! Yellow,” Thor said, triumphant. Loki sulked a little.

Sága took a deep breath of the late-summer air, closing her eyes, then opened them again to examine the twins. “When will it rain next?”

“Tomorrow,” Thor said without hesitation.

“Do you always know when the rain is coming?” she asked, and though her tone was neutral Loki’s scowl deepened.

Thor nodded. “Loki knows about the snow, though. When it’s coming and how much.”

“Hm.” Sága said, in a noncommittal way that made Loki grind his teeth. She reached into her bag again, taking a little longer to find what she was looking for. This time she brought out a rock, flat and grey and largely nondescript, and handed it to Thor. “Where do you think this came from?”

Thor blinked. He frowned down at the rock, turning it over in his hands, and hunched over as if expecting it to whisper to him. Whatever he hoped for, it wasn’t happening; at last he shrugged hopelessly. “Stream bed?” he tried.

Sága twitched her head, indicating he should hand it to his brother. Loki was in a sour mood now, so he took it as if it were an unbearably tedious task, but it was clear he couldn’t help wanting to show off. “It’s from the mountains. High up, somewhere cold.”

“Yes. It’s called shale.” Her face gave nothing away, the same dry expression, but Loki seemed a little vindicated nonetheless.

“So that’s magic?” Loki asked, quirking one eyebrow in a supremely unimpressed fashion.

She snorted. “That’s potential.  _ Magic _ is just learning not to waste it.”

Loki raised the other eyebrow slowly, an expression cribbed directly from Heimdall when he was waiting for the boys to offer a more sufficient explanation for whatever trouble he’d caught them at.

“You’ll see,” she told them both, smiling mysteriously, though on her aging face it looked a bit like a grimace. “Now, I’m owed one of those hares you have hanging, and if you don’t pick one for me I’ll pick for myself.”

Both the twins squawked indignantly. “You haven’t taught us anything!” Thor protested, as Loki was saying “That wasn’t worth a netted fish, never mind a hare!”

She let them register their protests; it took her awhile to get up from the ground, and when she had she simply shrugged at them. “Suppose I’ll pick my own, then.”

Loki snapped his mouth closed on the argument he’d been in the middle of and leapt to his feet, fetching the smallest of the hares and handing it over with a pursed mouth. Sága made a gruff little noise of satisfaction, then made her way around the cottage to shout up at Heimdall.

“They’re both going to need my tutelage!” she barked. “I won’t raise my price, but next time, we should talk about what you mean to do with them.”

Heimdall’s head appeared over the edge. “Raise them, ideally.”

Sága rolled her eyes. “Yes, but raise them to be  _ what? _ There’s the question. You know where they came from and so do I, and if there’s any justice in the world, no one else will until you’ve figured that out.” Then she stumped off towards the road, leaving Heimdall gazing after her, expressionless and somehow still managing to look very grim indeed.

~

The boys grew, and learned. Loki found Sága and her lessons infinitely frustrating, but he  _ was _ discovering skills he hadn’t guessed at. He couldn’t slice an apple with his fingers yet, but he could freeze a full bucket of water to hard ice in a few minutes if he concentrated, or send green lights sparkling through the dark by opening his fingers and willing it so. Thor could push seeds to flowers and flowers to fruit in the space of a few heartbeats, though he hadn’t yet managed to push from seed to fruit in one go. He could also, if there were a few clouds in the sky and the wind was right, pull down a spatter of rain.

It felt good, to have different skills. It felt as if they were summer and winter, as if they could touch fingertips and hold the whole of the year within themselves. Loki liked the feeling.

It wasn’t the only feeling Loki liked, when it came to his brother.

They still wrestled like pups, for any reason or none at all. They were maybe a little gentler with one another than they’d once been; now that they were stronger, and better trained, they could have done each other real damage if they’d tried. But this was play, and bonding, and by mutual unspoken agreement they kept it well short of anyone getting hurt.

There was an element of...tension, though, something that hadn’t been there when they were pups.

Heimdall had sent them out of the cottage to burn off some energy; the twins had grown tall and were filling out across the shoulders, and Heimdall was not himself a small man, so it could get crowded with the three of them all inside and awake. They had gone a little ways to get into the shade of the trees, and Thor had started this tussle by swiping the shiny stone Loki had been tossing from hand to hand, taunting him to come and get it back, if he wanted it.

Loki liked the physicality of it, the impact and motion of bodies in mock-struggle, the way they tangled together and then unwound and tangled together again in new ways. Sometimes Thor’s weight would settle on him and Loki’s breath would stop for the satisfaction of it. Today he managed to get the upper hand, pressing Thor down onto his back and snatching back the stone; Thor bared his throat in acceptance of his defeat, and Loki bent down to nip him in playful warning. It was only a light nip, not dissimilar to the ones their mother had given them to correct their behavior, but Thor whined softly. Loki sat back a little to read his body language, thinking he’d somehow overstepped—but Thor tipped his head back further, inviting, and Loki realized the sound had been a request rather than an objection.

He laughed, delighted, and set his teeth to Thor’s throat. The noise Thor made was harsher this time, and he shivered hard, even with Loki holding him down. By the third bite Thor was struggling again, but not to escape or overpower; only to get closer, pressing up with his whole body, his hands finding Loki’s hair. Loki bit down harder, worrying a bruise into the skin just to see if Thor would let him.

Thor groaned like a man in pain, but they weren’t men, not really. They were wolves, and that was not the sound of a wolf in pain. He gasped out Loki’s name—not  _ Loki _ but his true name, one of the ones they had given each other as pups, a sound like sinuous movement and the whispering of windblown leaves. It made Loki violent, made him insatiable, and he was biting and biting and Thor was arched so hard into him that his spine didn’t touch the ground. He didn’t stop until Thor sobbed, chilling his frenzy and making him pull back to assess the damage. 

Thor looked wrecked, his eyes wild and wet, throat mottled with red where the marks of Loki's teeth were beginning to come up; but he didn't look harmed, or distressed. Loki nosed his cheek gently, whining a query, and Thor whined back an answer that was not entirely certain.

Loki bent his head to lick over one of the bites, gentle but thorough, then whined another query. Thor’s breathing had ticked up into rough and shallow territory again and his eyes were squeezed shut, but he rumbled a noise that meant  _ yes  _ and curled his hands in the back of Loki’s tunic.

Loki found himself rolling his hips in little circles as he soothed his tongue over the bites; it wasn’t exactly comfortable, with his length hard between them and Thor’s too, but he chased the pressure anyway, the blooming pleasure of having something as firm as Thor to rut against well worth the discomfort. Thor clearly agreed—he spread his legs a little so that Loki settled perfectly into the gap. And then Loki was not so much rolling as  _ pushing, _ long full-body movements against Thor as Thor jerked beneath him and clutched at his hips.

Loki could feel pressure building—it was different from touching himself, more frustrating and yet somehow more exciting. The feeling suffused his entire body, not just his cock; it was as if by not touching himself, by experiencing the pressure and movement through layers of cloth and the imprecise motions of their hips, he was spreading the feeling out across the whole of himself instead of focusing it in one spot. It was hard to know how close he was to spilling like this too—it was a slower build-up, and while he was soaring, he wasn't sure if he was about to tip over or still had a ways to go.

It did not take very long in any case. Thor jerked under him again, a shiver going through the entire length of him, and then he was slowing, eventually going still entirely and pushing Loki back a little with a wince. "Too much," he breathed, and Loki shifted off of him a little, but only enough to avoid chafing his cock any further.

Which was all fair enough, but Loki was in need now. He reached beneath his tunic and undid the fastenings of his trousers, sighing with relief as he got a hand around himself. He spread the wetness down from the head, then closed his eyes as he stroked, pressing his face against Thor's shoulder and breathing the scent of him in.

His eyes flew open again as Thor tugged his tunic up.

"I want to see," Thor breathed, in response to his glance. There was something in his expression that made Loki's cock twitch in his fist, so he let him pull the tunic out of the way. Let him look.

It wasn't that they didn't do it in the other's presence. But Heimdall had impressed upon them early that it was a private undertaking, and so they normally only indulged under the blankets at night, after Heimdall had put out the lantern and closed the door. It wasn't a shared activity.

But now Loki was touching himself, and Thor was very, very present. He thought...he thought he liked it, being observed, as if his technique were being judged. And maybe he stopped hurrying to finish, and started showing off a little; and maybe that backfired, because the way Thor watched him, worrying his lip between his teeth, was putting an edge on the feeling that was going to hurry him right to the edge regardless.

He twisted away right at the last second, thinking only to keep from making more of a mess of Thor's already-sullied trousers; but Thor followed him, spooning up hard against him and wrapping an arm around his chest to hold him in place so that he couldn't escape Thor's gaze as he spilled into the grass.

They lay there unmoving for several long moments, catching their breath. Eventually Loki pushed Thor's arm off, sitting up to put his clothing back in order. Thor was smiling up at him in a way that made him itch; he felt contrary under the warmth of it, and shoved a handkerchief at Thor irritably to distract him. "Clean yourself up," he said, in Asgardian this time, and was even more irritated when Thor didn't seem bothered by it. He smiled at Loki again, then flopped the arm holding the handkerchief out to one side, blowing a puff of air upwards at the sky; in a moment, a small rainstorm came down, wetting the handkerchief thoroughly without so much as dampening Thor's sleeve.

"The river is  _ right over there," _ Loki grumbled, but Thor shrugged blithely and wrung out the handkerchief, then loosened his flies and set about wiping himself clean.

Now that the high had faded, Loki felt strange, and a little raw. It had been good, while they bit and writhed and rocked together, but—terrifying, almost, in its intensity. He would trust his brother with his life—sometimes, when they played, he would even give him his throat as Thor had done today. But this felt like too much. Like Thor could hurt him without trying, without even knowing, and no amount of corrective nipping or licked apologies would heal the damage after it was done.

Thor tried to reach for him when he was tidied up, but Loki didn't have to snap at him. It was easy enough to scoot out of range, and Thor was too languid and lazy to chase after him.

~

Heimdall had started supper by the time they wandered back. He didn't look up immediately, busy stirring some sort of stew over the fire, but when he did his expression went very, very neutral.

"Thor," he said carefully, "what happened to your neck?"

"Loki bit me," Thor said unconcernedly, sneaking a bit of bread from where it was cooling on the sill and dropping onto the bench at the supper table.

Loki had been right behind him, but he suddenly looked a bit like a spooked cat, hackles raised and trying to slowly back out of attracting Heimdall's attention. He didn't seem certain what trouble he was escaping, but he had always been good at reading the room.

Heimdall gazed into the pot he was stirring for awhile. Loki didn't relax. Thor cheerfully continued eating his stolen bread.

"That's different from your normal biting," he said at last. "Aesir don't bite our litter-mates that way."

"Aesir don't bite," Loki ventured.

_ "We _ bite," Thor said, puzzled.

"We're not—" Loki started, then at a look from Heimdall, "we're only sort of Aesir."

"You are Aesir, and when you live among them, you will need to be more Aesir than wolf," Heimdall sighed. "Some rules are negotiable. Some deviations will be accepted. This one will not. Those kinds of bites are for lovers, not for siblings.” He looked between them, gaze too knowing. “And other things you might do with someone for...bodily pleasure are the same."

Loki's body language shifted a little, settling downwards from  _ startled cat  _ into  _ cat that doesn't want to be picked up, _ a subtle squaring up and lowering of his center of gravity. "And when will we? Live among them?"

Heimdall sighed again. "Soon. Sooner than I'd like." His jaw worked thoughtfully for a moment. "There will be...many people, someday soon, who will be interested in such pursuits with you. I realize it can be difficult at your age, when the demands of the body feel very urgent. But there will be better candidates to share those demands with." 

Thor had begun to prickle now, opening his mouth, but Loki gave him a hard look and he subsided before Heimdall saw.

"I'll speak to Sága—maybe you  _ are  _ ready." Heimdall began ladling out stew, his usually serious face even more grim. “Maybe it is time for you to know the world, and it to know you in return.”

Neither of the boys said anything to that, but Loki took a seat on the bench beside Thor when he’d gotten his stew. He sat near enough that their thighs touched, and spread out so that their elbows did too; Thor pressed back, and the three ate in thoughtful silence.


End file.
